Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

There’s a scene in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 film Almost Famous that illustrates the unquestionable power of music. If you’ve seen the film you’ll know the scene I’m referring to. The fictional band Stillwater (complete with hangers on) are travelling on a tour bus, and they’re all angry with each other for reasons I won’t go into (please, if you haven’t seen the film do yourself a favour). Nobody is talking to anybody else, and then Elton John’s magnificent Tiny Dancer reunites them as a group. It’s uplifting, cathartic, and infectious.

The reason I mention this is that I experienced a similar display with Fleet Foxes self titled first album. I was around at a friends place and somebody lamented the lack of harmonies in modern music. To illustrate the weakness of their case I put on the album (I’m never too far from my portable music player) and was greeted by stunned silence. So powerful was the beauty of that album that people seemed almost afraid to move in case they broke the spell.

So Helplessness Blues has a lot to live up to. It’s not just me that thinks so. Fleet Foxes made a number of the important best of year lists, and generated a lot of buzz when they toured. A massively successful debut must be a terribly heavy mantle to bear when it comes time to write your follow up.

For the most part this is a very solid effort. There is a similar sense of timelessness to the songs. Folksy enough to predate electric instrumentation, harmonies from ‘70s FM radio, and lyrics that feel literary . For the most part this album makes me incredibly happy.

However ‘the most part’ by its very nature implies the presence of ‘the least part’ and there is a slight issue I have with the album. There is a touch of jazz that shows up in a couple of songs. It’s mostly subtle and underplayed, and it’s possible that I wouldn’t have minded it at all except for the end of  The Shrine / An Argument where we’re subjected to around a minute and a half of free jazz. A honking squawking squall of noise that I’m sure was making some kind of musical point, but just made me want to skip the song.

Ignoring the jazz  (or just skipping the end of that song) there’s a sense of how hard the album was to write. Most of the songs seem to have two or more distinct parts, and not interwoven. They’ll start out as one song, and finish as a completely different song. Sometimes, as on lead single and title track Helplessness Blues, it works. But largely it feels like incomplete ideas pressed together  to make an album. The thing is that they’re largely great ideas.

It’s a strong follow up, and a great album. I will continue to use Fleet Foxes as key evidence in the case that tremendous music is still being written. I’ll continue to happily listen to this album, and recommend it to others. I’m just not expecting it to stop a room of people flat in their tracks.